


To Melt Within

by Atisenia



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Chocolate, F/M, John-centric, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-07-13
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/758393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atisenia/pseuds/Atisenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John evenually moves back to Baker Street, there's a chocolate box waiting for him on the kitchen table.<br/>Too bad John doesn't really like chocolate all that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Just wanted to let you know that English isn't my first language, so you'll probably find some mistakes. Feel free to point them out. Constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

There was a chocolate box on the kitchen table.

John wasn’t sure what he was expecting to see after moving back to Baker Street. Experiments gone wrong and forgotten? Probably. Scattered body parts left in places he wouldn’t normally look? Definitely. A lot of Sherlock’s stuff bringing back more memories than he could handle? Well, there was no escaping this.

Chocolate, on the other hand, was not on the List of Possible Things to Find upon Arrival.

The kitchen was otherwise clean,  _aseptic_ , and somehow it felt wrong on too many levels. John knew Mrs Hudson had the flat cleaned (though Sherlock’s bedroom was off-limits) but the knowledge didn’t neutralize the shock of seeing it like this: empty and sort of pointless. He didn’t even know they had so much space.

Perhaps the weirdest thing was that the box didn’t really feel out of place. Maybe John was too used to strange things happening around him to care anymore, but the box was probably the only item in the flat that didn’t feel wrong.

He approached it cautiously, still considering the possibility of a trap. If life taught him something, it was that you could never trust the appearances. He learned it the hard way when he watched seemingly innocuous people turning into killing machines and then, with Sherlock, it was pretty much the same thing. So he had every right to suspect that an innocent looking box of sweets contained an exploding gift.

In the end, the box turned out to be full of chocolate pieces, not explosives. There was a note on the top and John turned it slowly in his hands. With a sigh, he read the simple message written with a handwriting that looked somewhat familiar (and yet John couldn’t place it):

 _I’ll be back when it’s finished_.

Nothing more. Just the note. And a box full of chocolate.

It was a pity that John didn’t really like chocolate all that much.


	2. Cocoa

John didn’t discover where the chocolates had come from. He quickly ruled out the obvious Mrs Hudson option and it turned out to be the only one he could think of.

He didn’t really care though. As much as he always tried to satisfy his curiosity, it was just a box full of chocolate. So he didn’t extend his little investigation, placed the box on one of the eerily empty shelves and forgot about it (or rather deliberately avoided it).

Until one day life decided to hate him even more than it already did.

It started raining at some point the previous evening and it didn’t look like ending any time soon. The atmospheric pressure was still dropping, giving John a massive headache. It also meant that his shoulder was acting up and his leg decided to remind him of his imaginary wound.

The pain had been successfully keeping him from falling asleep and no healthy amount of painkillers or sleeping pills could remedy that. So instead of sleeping, John found himself staring at the ceiling at five in the morning and it really didn’t help to improve his mood.

At half past six he gave up and went to the kitchen to put the kettle on for some coffee. He stared blankly at the table until the water boiled and he almost accidentally burned himself while filling the mug. With a sigh, he added some milk and went to sit on the sofa in the living room.

Coffee didn’t help so he made some tea. It didn’t help either.

John really needed some stimulant to increase his energy level and quickly. He didn’t quite fancy to vegetate like this all day. But he couldn’t endure another cup of coffee or the prospect of having it without milk but with sugar. And tea wasn’t helping since he was probably immune to it by now.

He looked at the nearly empty shelf, occupied only by the forgotten chocolate box, and hesitated. No, he wasn’t a fan of it, that was true, but the endorphin buzz he would get from chocolate could maybe, possibly, help.

John stared at the box a bit more as if waiting for it to give him answers (which it didn’t; these things never quite worked for him). He sighed and got up to fetch it.

He laid it down on the table and slowly lifted the lid. He stared at the chocolates with confusion. Before, it seemed the box was full of little pieces of chocolate but now, when he looked at them closely, he found only nine, in three neat rows.

He frowned and hesitated with a hand over the box. He picked one at random and eyed it suspiciously. After all, it could still be poisoned. Or drugged. Or just generally messed up.

John wasn’t really surprised when he found he didn’t much care at this point. He needed the pain to stop and well, either way seemed fine. So he ate the cocoa flavoured chocolate and didn’t die immediately afterwards, which he thought was something.

He didn’t feel better though. Not that he’d been honestly expecting any change.

John looked down at the remaining chocolates and grimaced. He didn’t really fancy another one, so he put the lid back and placed the box on the shelf. As soon as he came back to the sofa, he heard a knocking on the door.

“Yoo-hoo!,” Mrs Hudson cried opening the door with one hand and carrying a tray with tea and chocolate-free biscuits in the other. John hurried to help her and laid the tray on the table. “Thank you, dear,” Mrs Hudson said. She sat on the sofa and waited for John to join her. “How are you feeling, John? This dreadful weather isn’t treating you overly bad, I hope.”

It _was_ but John wasn’t going to tell her that.

“I’m fine, Mrs Hudson,” he said.

She looked at him pointedly and John knew she didn’t buy it. Thankfully though, she didn’t comment on it either.

“My hip is vicious” she said and poured some tea in the cups.

The smell embraced him like a good friend. He felt warmer, even though he didn’t drink anything yet and he would swear that, for a moment, he could detect a small hint of chemicals and gun powder in the air (and was it wool?) that felt familiar. Most likely, his senses played tricks on him.

The tea, though, tasted like it had always done.

“John, dear, is everything alright?” Mrs Hudson asked him.

“Hm?” he responded absentmindedly and then shook off his stupor. “Oh, sorry, I was just…” he started but didn’t know how to finish.

Mrs Hudson looked at him worriedly. Dealing with Sherlock must have been paying off because the next thing she said was: “I’ve been thinking about remodelling my flat a bit this spring. I like the wallpaper, mind you, but the furniture is all wrong. I’ve been reading about this feng shui business, you see. Do you think you could help me rearrange it?”

John flashed her a grateful smile and they started a conversation about furniture and flat energy pools and auras and John found himself laughing which was much more than he’d expected from this day.

When Mrs Hudson left him, she didn’t take his smile away with her. John was surprised to notice that his headache subsided and his leg forgot it was supposed to hurt.

He felt better than he did in _months_. No matter the aching shoulder.

The thing was, something in his arm shifted too. The pain was still present but now it was only a dull ache. He felt a strange warmth concentrated on his old wound, like a soft kiss.

John sat in his armchair and switched the telly on. He found some nonsensical talk-show and decided to watch it, all the time imagining Sherlock’s voice insulting the contestants (and wasn’t it _obvious_ she was only his _half_ sister?!). And for the first time since Sherlock’s… disappearance… John didn’t mind. He found it refreshing —or cathartic, even— to let that particular memory flood him.

During the break, John went to put the kettle on for some tea and stood leaning on the counter with a small smile. There was that faint smell of chemicals again that was inevitably _Sherlock_. When John opened the fridge, he half-expected to find a severed head there, or maybe an arm, so it was rather strangely disappointing to be presented only with food.

John sighed and took out the milk. The water still needed time to boil, so he made a toast to go with it. When he returned to the living room, the show hadn’t started yet and he didn’t really fancy watching the never-ending string of publicity. So, he put the TV on mute and listened to the rain still pouring down the window glasses. Now that he didn’t feel as if every drop was digging a hole in his skull, John quite enjoyed the sound of it.

The rain seemed a bit nostalgic, like one of the songs Sherlock often played in his rare states of melancholy. It mixed sad, teary notes with tones more bright and hopeful and John found himself immersed in it for a long moment with something suspiciously like familiarity settling inside him. It didn’t take long for him to fall asleep.

He dreamed about Sherlock.

The fact in itself wasn’t new or surprising, since his old war nightmares merged with the sight of Sherlock’s bloody face and hollow eyes and haunted him with images that were horrifyingly surreal. But this was different. This was a happy dream.

Well, maybe not exactly _happy_ because there wasn’t anything really happening. But it was one of those dreams that don’t happen very often, that seem real until proven otherwise, with bright, seemingly touchable colours, vivid sounds and strong smells. He was still sitting in his armchair and everything seemed exactly as it was a moment ago except for one tiny, vital detail.

Sherlock was sitting in the other armchair, his very much alive eyes fixated on his phone. He was muttering something John couldn’t quite catch and getting progressively more frustrated with the phone. And, oh, how John had missed that look!

Sherlock glanced at him and sighed.

“I’m not dead, John,” he said with what seemed like immense sadness.

John wanted to believe him, he really did, but wasn’t it something the dead always said when they showed themselves to you? And what did it say about him that he could see his dead friend like this?

He got up from his chair anyway and went to stand beside Sherlock’s, extending a hesitant hand in his direction. Sherlock sighed again and took John’s hand in his own.

John blinked down at their joined hands, overwhelmed by too many stimuli. Sherlock’s voice talking nonsense (which was so different from his usual brand that actually _made sense_ after a while). The warmth of his hand in John’s. The smell of his cologne with a hint of his shampoo and something that was simply _Sherlock_.

“What—” John started but then he felt something yanking him away from the dream. He woke with a start and sent the mug still resting on the arm of his chair crashing down to the floor. It didn’t break, but it was a close thing. The rain still played its song and the talk-show had apparently been replaced by some inanity.

Sherlock was gone.

John sighed because, really, what did he expect? All that sudden feeling of domesticity was too good to last. He had felt warm and _safe_ but now, he was just tired.

“Sherlock is gone,” he reminded himself. “He’s gone and he’s never coming back.”

So why was the smell of his cologne still lingering in the air?


	3. Nougat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas is approaching but John doesn't really feel like celebrating.

The newly found domesticity stayed with him from that day on and John welcomed it like an old friend — which was closer to the truth than he cared to admit. Still, sometimes he got overwhelmed by it and had to leave the flat, pretending he wasn’t running away from something that was already long gone.

This was one of those days.

He stepped out of the flat and shivered. The rain turned surprisingly into snow and even though it wasn’t the coldest John remembered London to be, the sudden drop in temperature made every venture outside barely manageable.

Christmas was going to be a nightmare.

He didn’t feel like celebrating. There wasn’t much for him to celebrate. He didn’t exactly go back to just barely existing like he had after Afghanistan but he wasn’t fully alive either. Sometimes, he had tea with Mrs Hudson and he went out for a pint with Greg from time to time; they never talked about Sherlock then, even if they both wanted to. They would meet for that at Greg’s or, more likely, John’s place and they would go into Sherlock’s bedroom to laugh at the silly clothes he wore or the periodic table he had pinned to the wall, as if he hadn’t memorized it ages ago. Most likely, it had its own chamber (or a dungeon, John laughed) in Sherlock’s Mind Palace. Greg knew he wasn’t a fraud and that was enough for John.

So, he was coping. He had bad days when he would almost drown in regret and self-pity but he was coping.

And yet he once again found himself at Sherlock’s grave. He wasn’t even aware that he was heading there until he was already near the cemetery.

“Funny, that,” he told Sherlock, removing the snow from the marble. “I escape the flat, which is full of you, by the way, I don’t know how you’ve done it, just to come here to you. But then, I guess there’s no escaping you at all, is there?” He sighed. “Come back, you stupid git, you’ve been dead long enough now.”

His phone chimed in his pocket and for exactly one heartbeat he thought that maybe—

But it was just another Christmas message with silly wishes from someone who apparently wasn’t important to him, since he didn’t have their full name written down. It was that multiple recipient bullshit John wasn’t going to reply to. He sighed.

“Just... just come back, ok? I’ll find you some fingers and let you keep them in the fridge.” And then he laughed because, really. What else was there left for him to do? “Maybe I should just bring the fingers to the flat anyway and leave them on the counter so you could experiment on them or something. Should’ve tried that on Halloween.”

He laughed some more and ignored the not-so-subtle looks he’d been getting. They didn’t know. They never knew.

He started walking back home when his phone chimed again. John looked at it and sighed. He clearly still didn’t know how to manage the bloody beast if he was sending texts to _his own phone_ , and they didn’t even make any sense at all.

When he reached the flat, he was practically shivering. Still, the walk home gave him some ideas as to how to avoid the Christmas gathering, so he took a long, hot shower, made himself a cup of tea and started plotting.

 

He told Greg he was going to spend Christmas with Harry because the inspector knew about Mrs Hudson’s family meeting, John had no date this time and no one would actually be mad enough to think he’d spend Christmas with _Mycroft_. Greg didn’t know about Harry’s new girlfriend though, that would make John feel like the third wheel, and John intended for it to stay that way.

He told Harry he’d stay with Mrs Hudson because his sister for some reason thought that his landlady was physically attached to the place and unable to move outside of it. Mrs Hudson didn’t like her very much because of that, though Harry never said anything to her face. She had a sixth sense, that woman.

He told Mrs Hudson he’s going out with Greg on Christmas Eve and then visiting Mike Stamford on Christmas Day because Mrs Hudson wouldn’t buy the Harry bullshit. She liked Lestrade well enough though and John made sure to mention Mike more than he usually did.

He told Mike he booked a last minute trip, just to see if the man would believe him. Which he did. John even got a sympathetic look and an understanding pat on the shoulder. It made him want to scream and John had to use all of his willpower not to snap at the man. He managed.

He told Mycroft absolutely nothing at all about his Christmas plans. He was fairly sure that the man kept him under surveillance anyway, despite the fact that John searched the damn flat to the ground and found only one bloody camera (in the fridge, of all places). So he just stood in his living room, arms crossed, and told the man to go to hell, mind his own business and generally just promptly _piss off_.

So he was spending his Christmas alone with everyone thinking a different thing. Unfortunately, that left no one to appreciate his cunning.

 

He went to say goodbye to Mrs Hudson with damp hair and his next-to-best shirt, letting the woman believe he was just about to leave as well. An hour later (when it was obvious Mrs Hudson wasn’t coming back; it’s good to be paranoid sometimes) he was lying on the sofa, watching telly in his favourite festive jumper that Sherlock had deemed ridiculous what seemed like a lifetime ago.

It was all rather mindless with silly family or romantic comedies that had never held his interest for long. After a while, he found himself inventing the plot of a Christmas mystery film, with nearly unsolvable murders and gruesome tokens of affection in the spirit of the holiday. And the protagonist was a particularly clever detective, for some reason.

Then he heard the doorbell ring. For a few second he didn’t move. He wasn’t supposed to be here and he could have probably pretended there’s no one in the flat if only he hadn’t left the damn light on, which was a very stupid, basic mistake.

Still, maybe the person at the door would realize they’re not welcome and just... walk away.

They didn’t, though. The second doorbell was more insistent and when there was no answer on his part, the door opened (did he really forget to lock it?) and he was presented with a concerned face of one Molly Hooper.

Damn, there was always something, as Sherlock might have said. He had completely forgotten about her.

“Hello, John,” she said, clearly unsure what to do, now that she established he was alive or whatever the hell was her intention.

“Molly,” he said politely but with a cold undertone, sitting up and crossing his arms.

She sent him a wary glance.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I live here,” John told her, irritated. “Why are _you_ here would be a more pertinent question, I think.”

She blushed and looked pointedly at the floor.

“I-I have a gift,” she said eventually. “For you. I mean... it’s not from me, it’s... from someone else, I’m only delivering it, I—“ She took a deep breath. “Here. Take it,” she said, extending a neatly packed _something_ in his direction. When he made no move to take it, she sighed and left the gift on the coffee table. Then she turned to study the room. John ignored her and glared at the offending package. “Is that a gift as well?” he heard Molly ask with awe and followed her look. She was staring at the chocolate box on the shelf, eyes wide.

“Sort of...” John said, eyeing the box suspiciously.

“I thought so. These chocolates are really good and expensive. Someone cares about you very much then,” Molly said and John frowned. If they cared, they’d probably know he didn’t _like_ chocolate.

“You can have them if you want,” he said, hoping it would make her leave. It didn’t.

“No, I-I... I can’t,” she said, almost panicky, as usual. She was probably afraid that John thought she mentioned the chocolates on purpose. “You... you should have them, John,” she mumbled, staring at the floor again. Then she looked at him and after a silent “Merry Christmas” she was gone.

Well, that was strange, John thought, looking at the suspicious gift and then at the ridiculous chocolate box. He ignored the package and went to inspect the chocolates. They seemed fairly normal to him, in no way special or expensive or really good. But then, how would _he_ know such a thing?

He shrugged, picked one at random and put it in his mouth. He waited for a revelation that didn’t come. Obviously. It was just a nougat flavoured chocolate that he could have done without.

He shrugged again, left the box on the shelf and sat back on the sofa, glaring at the gift. It was carefully wrapped in paper of an indescribable shade of blue (or was it green?) and didn’t look like it was going to explode. So John just sighed and opened it. He blinked at the contents with confusion. A classical music collection was not what he expected to find.

He switched the TV off because it started to annoy him and made use of his new possession. He recognized the first track (not by name; he could never know them by name) as one that Sherlock used to play when he was deep in thought and didn’t want to be disturbed. It left him itching for something he couldn’t quite determine.

His subconscious decided for him and when another track started, John found himself in front of Sherlock’s bedroom. He probably associated the music with his flatmate, though that didn’t explain why he entered the room and searched for the violin. He couldn’t even play the thing but somehow, in that moment, it was important for him to hold it. Sentiment, he supposed, and he could easily imagine Sherlock scoff at him for that.

But, apparently, it couldn’t be helped, so John settled on the floor in the living room and pulled out the violin from its case. He traced the wood with tenderness, his fingers followed the shape with strange familiarity.

And then, as the next track on the list started playing, the light touch wasn’t enough. He needed to place the bow on the strings and _play_ (but he couldn’t play; he didn’t know _how_ ).

That’s why Greg found him still sitting on the floor, with his laptop open in front of him, trying to make the damn thing sound like it was supposed to and failing miserably. The fingers on the strings hurt, his neck hurt from keeping it at the weird angle and he probably shouldn’t have done that to his shoulder, which also hurt, but he found he didn’t care.

“What the _hell_?” Greg asked, looking at John as if he saw him for the first time in his life.

“Did you know that you’re not supposed to touch the hair?” John asked, not really caring about his friend’s reaction. “It’s funny, I thought Sherlock was doing that all the time... Why aren’t you at home?”

“Why are _you_?

John just shrugged and played that useless YouTube video again with growing frustration.

“Did Molly tell you?” he asked, still annoyed at himself for overlooking her.

“No one told me anything, you idiot,” Greg said and took the violin out of John’s hands, ignoring the affronted “hey!” he got in return. “I’m not actually that stupid, you know?”

“I was playing it!” John crossed his arms and glared at the inspector. He had a stain on his tie, as John smugly observed.

“No, you weren’t,” Greg said and put the violin in its case, and then the case out of John’s reach. John crossed his arms a little harder. “And I knew you wouldn’t go to Harry’s, not when she’s got herself a girlfriend and yes, I know about that.”

“You two talk to each other?” John asked, terrified by the thought.

“So I called her, you know, just in case,” Lestrade seemed to purposefully ignore him. “And guess what she told me? That you were staying with Mrs Hudson, which is an obvious lie.”

“So much for guessing...”

“And then I come here and _of course_ you wouldn’t answer the door, and when I find you, you nearly fucking _bleed_ on the strings of the bloody violin!” Greg said. “Harry wasn’t very pleased that you lied to her, by the way, and she’s probably on her way here now.”

John scowled at him, painfully aware that he looked like a petulant child. It would seem he _did_ catch something from Sherlock after all. Figures.

Before any of them had a chance to say anything else, the door opened again and they saw a very put out Mrs Hudson.

“Honestly, John, lying like this to the poor old lady,” she said, already putting the kettle on, still in her coat. “I was about to board the train, I was, but I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

“But... how did you...?” started John, surprised.

She only glanced at him knowingly.

“Coffee or tea, inspector?” she asked.

“Tea would be lovely, Mrs Hudson. Thank you.”

John glared at him, and then glared some more, but he knew a lost cause when he saw one. Then Harry stormed in, clearly displeased with him but, miraculously she didn’t start searching the flat for alcohol. He could stand her annoying chatter if she was sober.

It seemed that he wouldn’t be spending his Christmas alone after all.


	4. Coconut

In the end, he was glad that they didn’t leave him alone. At first, he was overwhelmed by having those people around him, making a fuss, but then he felt irrationally warm.

And then there were all those little things that made John feel closer to Sherlock (though he wasn’t sure it was a healthy thing), like his sudden fascination with the violin or curling on the sofa in a very familiar, cat-like manner. He also ventured into Sherlock’s bedroom more often and rummaged through the old copies of case files that hadn’t been taken by the police or recreated his experiments from the messy notes.

It was kind of liberating.

He needed two days of intense practicing (and nearly throwing the violin out of the window with frustration) to manage a simple melody without a false note. It made him feel pretty proud of himself and strangely at peace. He was nowhere near Sherlock’s level but it was a start, he supposed. And a very good one, it would seem, because soon enough he could play much more and it seemed to come to him naturally.

He was beginning to understand the appeal of the instrument. Playing was important, of course, but sometimes it was enough to just hold the violin, the already familiar weight in his arms strangely comforting. Plucking at the strings made him feel grounded and he desperately needed that, so he pointedly ignored the worried looks Mrs Hudson had been sending him.

Also, John started noticing things. When interacting with people in general seemed like too much effort, observing them was a natural consequence. And he only noticed insignificant details that would make Sherlock wave a dismissive hand or look at him with that fond “you’re-an-idiot-but-points-for-trying smile. And it was useless anyway, because it wasn’t like he suddenly began deducing stuff (well, other than in the obvious _if you have a stain on your tie, then your tie is dirty_ way, which was a lousy one).

But John found his observations fascinating. He couldn’t possibly explain human behaviour or reasons behind it but he was amazed by how many minuscule things there were to discover that he’d been blind to before.

He refused to admit it, but he suspected that his new fascination had something to do with the quickly approaching anniversary of Sherlock’s death. While it helped him in his resolution to absolutely _not_ think about that day, it did link his thoughts to his dead best friend.

He now dreamed about Sherlock more often than not and the detective seemed progressively more frustrated. He looked like he wanted to tell John something but couldn’t, and he took it out on his phone, typing furiously.

The familiar feeling of domesticity still lingered in the flat, making him equal parts content and craving something he couldn’t possibly have.

When ignoring the reminder of the fact that Sherlock was, in fact, dead and gone didn’t exactly work, John let go and was surprised to see that he could now think about all the good things they shared without wanting to crawl into a little ball and shrink into nonexistence. And it was good. It was refreshing. It still caused him pain but it was somewhat alleviated by the time, morphing into something more like a dull ache.

So when the day came, he refused Greg’s company and actually managed to convince him that he needed his time alone. He left the flat early in the morning and headed for St. Bart’s. He hadn’t been there since... well, _since_ , and he didn’t particularly fancy the trip now, but he had to do what needed to be done.

He bought a solitary rose on his way there. Sherlock would have probably hated it, but it was more for John’s benefit anyway.

He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Sherlock’s funeral was a quiet, private affair. It was probably Mycroft’s doing, and though John still partially blamed him for what had happened, he couldn’t resent _that_. It felt more intimate that way, without the meddling journalists that would only come searching for sensation and not to pay their respects to his friend.

Now there were things left on the pavement, discreet objects that would go unnoticed if one wasn’t paying attention.

The string of paper cups with things drawn or written on them and empty bags of Sherlock’s favourite crisps was probably from the Homeless Network. There were also flowers, hidden discreetly as to not draw attention, and John even spotted a knitted miniature of a deerstalker.

Not everyone believed in the lies the newspapers told, then.

For a moment, John felt like an idiot for leaving his solitary flower (rose, pink) in the middle of the pavement. Maybe he should have been more subtle after all. But it was his purpose to leave the rose where Sherlock fell and he was going to do just that.

The phone chimed in his pocket and John sighed when he saw another message from Harry. His sister seemed to belatedly assume the role of an older sibling and was taking it way too seriously for his liking.

He took a picture of St. Bart’s for future reference and headed for the cemetery, buying another rose (white) on his way there. It turned out people liked hospitals more than graveyards and so it was nearly deserted, no small objects circling Sherlock’s grave. But John felt closer to Sherlock when he was talking to his grave, which was a silly thing, he supposed. If there was life after death, he would be able to hear John everywhere and if there wasn’t... well, then it didn’t make a difference either. John was a practical man but he had never considered himself an overly logical one, so it was alright in the end.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly, lowering the rose to the ground. “You’re still gone. I guess there’s no cheating death then because if there was, you would’ve found a way,” John said and sat on the ground behind the gravestone with his back leaning on it. If he tried very hard, he could almost imagine it was Sherlock’s back, cold from the wind and not—

His phone chimed again and he rolled his eyes at another message, this time from Mike. The man was the only one that let himself be fooled by John’s Christmas plans and now he seemed determined to make up for it on every possible occasion.

John ignored the message — as well as a new voicemail from Harry — and looked around. There was a man approaching Sherlock’s grave, with a candle. He noticed John and inclined his head in silent greeting, which gave John time to observe him. Then he turned his head away to give the stranger a private moment with Sherlock’s memory. The silence was interrupted only by the click of a lighter and then the man was gone.

“Can you read things from his hair?” John asked, as soon as they were alone again. “I mean, you probably _could_ , what with that Moriarty cover and all, but this one was just normal. No product, I don’t think. Just... hair.” He sighed and shook his head. “This is pointless. You won’t reply and I don’t know so why do I even—?” He paused again and stared right ahead. “Did you know him well?” he asked. “Or was it just a client that knows better than those idiots from the press?” John bit his lip. “He had a ring though”, he said after a moment. “On his right hand. Does it mean anything to you? Is he, like, from another culture or country?” John sighed again. “You would know. I just saw that it was clean and on the wrong hand. Though Mycroft has something on his right hand too, doesn’t he? I always assumed it was some emergency weapon to kill off all the poor bastards who’d decide to avoid his favourite security cameras. Or start a war during lunch time,” he said with half a smile, more for Sherlock’s sake than anything else. (And wasn’t that just plain stupid? Sherlock was dead and nothing John said or did could bring him back.)

His phone chimed again and he growled. If this was Harry again — or anyone else feeling sorry for him for that matter — he’d throw the bloody thing into the tree. Or, quite possibly, bury it with Sherlock and maybe it would annoy him enough to make him see some reason and just _stop this_.

But it was that nonsensical text that his phone kept sending him and John just sighed.

“You’d know how to fix this,” he told Sherlock, deleting the message. “You were probably fixing stuff on my phone every time you _borrowed_ it. I’m hopeless with these things.” He laughed without any actual joy in it. “Look at me, I’m talking too much and there’s no one who’d listen. I almost wish I brought the skull.” He started giggling hysterically for no reason other than to avoid actually breaking into tears. “God, Sherlock, look at me. I miss you. I need you. Isn’t it bloody pathetic? You’re gone and I can’t... I have to...”

He sighed again and ignored the pain in his leg that decided it was a good moment to make an appearance. John stood up and traced the contours of the gravestone (black, like Sherlock’s curls, like his moods and maybe a bit like his soul, but _no_ , that wasn’t—) with his fingers, whispered a goodbye and walked away.

 

He almost bumped into Mrs Hudson in the flat. She was cleaning the windows, which was probably some coping mechanism, since John had cleaned them that very week (probably for the same reasons). His landlady stopped for a moment and looked at him with a frown.

“You look really tired, dear” she said. “Let me fetch some chocolate for you, I was just doing the cupcakes and I have some left.” She moved to leave and John just winced. If she indeed brought the chocolate, she would wait until he ate the whole bloody thing and, honestly, it was the last thing he wanted right now.

“No need, Mrs Hudson,” John said, fetching the chocolate box from the shelf, making a show of opening it. “I have these,” he said and picked a chocolate. Coconut, it would seem. It could be worse; the white filling was surprisingly smooth and practically melted on his tongue. “Do you want one?” he asked, extending the box in her direction.

Mrs Hudson just shook her head.

“Thank you, dear, that’s lovely, but I think you need it more than I do.”

The sun lit Mrs Hudson’s face and John berated himself for not seeing the signs earlier. Her eyes were red and tired, and suspiciously glassy, and the bags underneath made her look older than she usually did.

“Mrs Hudson, I...” he started, coming closer. She only waved her hand impatiently.

“Oh, don’t you worry about the silly old lady,” she said with a determined tone. “I’ll just... make us some tea.”

She swallowed a sob and went to the kitchen. John sighed and gave her the moment of privacy she probably needed. He sat on the sofa and waited for her instead.

They needed to survive this day.

It was actually beautifully ironic how affected they all were by Sherlock’s death, given that he was always doing everything in his power to discourage any form of sentiment. And yet here they were, unable to forget that arrogant git, trying to finally _stop_ constructing their lives around him.

And not exactly succeeding.

Mrs Hudson came back with tea and they drank it in silence, which was what they both needed. After that, she went back to her flat, forgetting all about the windows, but that was okay. They served their purpose.

John sighed and curled on the sofa with a motion that was a little too much like Sherlock’s. He missed that bloody git. He needed the danger and excitement that came with him and though it wasn’t as bad as after Afghanistan, John knew he was missing an important part of who he was.

But it wasn’t all about never being bored with Sherlock. John missed the independence that came with doing what he wanted and not what he was told to do. Like when he enlisted because he needed that freedom, like when he ignored practically _everyone_ and moved in with Sherlock Holmes. And it felt good to have someone who fully understood him. Who knew all his dark corners and not only accepted them but was actually glad they existed.

John missed not having to hide, to blend so well into the background that even his _therapist_ couldn’t find the real him beneath seemingly harmless cover and _God_ , he didn’t even know he needed that.

He wanted back that life — when living on the edge, betting his life over and over again, sharpened his mind — and that thrill of excitement when there was another puzzle to solve, and he waited for it nearly as much as Sherlock did.

He sighed and sat up, and then he froze because Sherlock’s chair wasn’t empty anymore. His friend was silent, just looking at John with something resembling sadness, only it couldn’t be _that_ because it was Sherlock and Sherlock had never looked at him with such longing, and—

And then he blinked and Sherlock was gone.

Hallucinations then. Great. Just what he needed.

There was beer in the fridge. He also intended to make use of the ridiculously expensive whisky Sherlock bought for some experiment and then forgot about, and that one bottle of vodka looked quite promising too.

He ended up in Sherlock’s room again, more drunk than he’d been in _months_ and he fell asleep, thinking about all those things he could no longer have.


	5. Toffee

He didn’t dream about Sherlock.

It was rather strange and almost disappointing, considering the amount of thinking he had done on the subject. Or maybe he should just feel relieved.

He did have an enormous hangover though and that was a perfect start to that sure-to-be-wonderful day. Yet again he wondered why tea couldn’t cure everything. He made himself one anyway and then went out to see St. Bart’s (or, rather, to take some more pictures for his blog) and went back home to write a thank-you post to all the people that still believed in Sherlock Holmes.

He was in the middle of a wrestling match with his camera when the door opened and a very tired DI fell on the sofa, helping himself to the leftover beer first.

“Good day to you too,” John said, looking at Greg with a trained eye. “You look like shite. I think you need some chocolate,” he said and almost smiled at his own lousy joke.

Almost.

Greg just glanced at him with a scowl and drank half a bottle in one go.

“Oh, I needed _that_ ,” he sighed.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” John told him, as he finally managed to download the photos on his laptop. “I took care of most of the booze yesterday.”

Lestrade hummed and drank some more.

“That’s why you look like shite yourself,” he said.

John just shrugged.

“That’s certainly one of the reasons why I feel like this.”

“Yeah, I imagine you would,” Greg murmured and put the almost empty bottle on the coffee table. “But, how are you? Really?” he asked, looking at John intently.

John shrugged again.

“Been better. Will survive,” he said and turned to face Greg. “You haven’t come here just to see how I feel, have you?”

“No. Well, yes. That too. I had to make sure you’re not being stupid. At least more than usual.” That got him a look, which he ignored. “But yesterday was like a day in hell and I needed...”

“You needed to come and drink my beer?” John asked, which saved Greg the need to answer. They both knew anyway.

“Something like that,” Greg admitted. “You’d think after a year, after he’d been _exonerated,_ for God’s sake, they’d leave it alone but _no_. ‘How many cases have been reopened?’ ‘Did you know he’d been planting evidence?’ ‘Who discovered the schemes?’ ‘What about John Watson?’” Lestrade looked at him with tired eyes and drank the rest of his beer. John went to fetch him another.

“The press being a nightmare then?” he asked, sitting back in his chair.

“You have no idea,” Greg sighed and John realized that no, he really didn’t this time. It was rather strange that they left him alone. “That would be Mycroft’s doing,” the inspector said, correctly reading John’s expression. “He may have somehow made everyone believe that you’re out of the country.”

“Ah. Well, he has to be good for _something_ ,” John said, distaste clear in his voice. “I’m a little surprised they didn’t check that information though.”

Greg just shrugged.

“Mycroft can be very... persuasive,” he said, pursed his lips and looked away. “They asked other questions too,” he said, more gently. “About you. You and him.”

Lestrade looked at him again and John sighed.

“You know we... We weren’t. Like that,” he said. “We weren’t.”

The other man just nodded.

“I know that,” he said and they were silent for a while. “You wanted to, though.”

John opened his mouth and closed it again. He very briefly considered lying to Greg because he didn’t particularly want to talk about how confused he had been and how he then resigned himself to this impossible situation until he fully accepted it in the end. But Greg was a friend and Sherlock was dead, and there was no real damage it could cause anymore, was there?

“I did,” he confessed quietly. “God help me, I did. I don’t even know how or why, I just...”

Greg nodded sharply and finished his beer.

“Do you ever regret it?” he asked. “Not... telling him? Not knowing?”

John sighed.

“Sometimes,” he admitted. “I keep thinking that maybe if I did, he wouldn’t...” He shook his head. “But, you know, he was the most observant man on the planet, I’m sure he knew anyway.” _And it didn’t stop him_. Greg only looked at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just don’t really think he did.”

“You know this is Sherlock we’re talking about, right? Besides, he warned me off the very first night, and I didn’t even _mean_ anything then. Not yet. He said he was married to his Work. And then he probably saw my feelings and chose to ignore them. You know how he despised sentiment.”

Greg banged his fingers on the bottle and said nothing for a long while. John started to think about going back to his blog when his friend spoke again.

“Didn’t you want to know for sure?” he asked.

And John really didn’t want to think about all the what-ifs now, when there was nothing he could do anymore. He was quite certain he got it right and he needed that certainty to be enough.

“What we had,” he said, slowly, “was special. I knew it. He probably knew it too. And... Yeah, ok, I fell for him. Somehow. At some point. And if he asked for more, I would’ve—.” He sighed. “But what we had was enough. More than enough, actually.” He snorted. “Sometimes I felt like it was everything. Almost too much. And... and well.” John smiled miserably. “I was a complete failure at dating anyway, so maybe it’s for the best.”

Greg looked like he wanted to say something else but changed his mind. He just nodded and raised the bottle in an one-sided toast.

“Are these chocolates from him?” he asked after some time, surprising John. He looked at the box and frowned.

“What, from Sherlock?” he asked. “No, why would they be? I kind of... found them on the table when I moved back in. Why?”

Greg eyed the box and shrugged.

“No reason. I just saw something similar at Molly’s, that’s all.”

“Yes, she told me that she liked— Now, hang on! You two have been seeing each other?”

Greg mumbled something and moved to leave, giving John an apologetic glance. He was gone before John could react.

John began to suspect that all this talking wasn’t about Sherlock after all. Not entirely, anyway. He reached for his phone to call Molly but she saved him the trouble by materializing at his doorstep with tired eyes and a determined aura.

(And, really, John should probably check the locks.)

“Is Greg here?” she asked, looking around as if he expected him to hide behind the curtain. She saw the chocolate box and scowled at him.

“I know, I know,” John said and sighed. “My loss.” She crossed her arms and looked at him pointedly. John needed to ask her something so he sighed and picked up the box. One chocolate could buy him her good will.

It did make her smile. And even though the toffee filling was too sweet for him and he nearly choked, John thought it was worth it.

“Do you know where Greg is?” Molly asked. “I need to talk to him.”

John looked at her and tried to deduce something from all those little details he could see, but they were like small dots he couldn’t join. Her ponytail was messy. Her eyes had bags below them. There was something desperate in the line of her lips. She was wearing a mousy cardigan over an insipid blouse.

It was pointless.

“Why are you looking for him?” he asked, giving up.

“I-I told you. I need to talk to him,” she stuttered.

“About what?” Now she looked panicky and kept glancing at the door. John might have taken pity on her if it wasn’t for Greg. “Can you tell me why he’s come here to talk about _feelings_? I assumed he meant Sherlock but _perhaps_ he didn’t. At all. So. Why are you looking for him?”

Molly paled and then blushed. Then she looked him in the eye, which he didn’t expect.

“Did he— did he really talk about that? I mean...” She bit her lower lip.

“He did. But what do _you_ want to say to him?”

“I... I don’t know anymore. I—“

She bolted out of the flat and John was left alone again.

He sighed and looked at his laptop. He didn’t feel like going through that blog post anymore, so he just closed the lid and went to Sherlock’s bedroom. He spent far too much time there. He should probably just move on already. But he couldn’t just leave it, not yet.

It was foolish of him, overly sentimental and masochistic at the same time, but he opened the wardrobe and ran his fingers through the soft material of Sherlock’s shirts. One fell down from its hanger and he went to fish it out.

That’s when he found the box.

It was a small box, without any lock, which was rather odd. It left him with an uneasy feeling that John couldn’t quite explain until he saw a label attached to the box that stated simply: _John_.

So the bloody git was performing experiments on him. It wasn’t exactly news to John and he didn’t know if he should feel relieved or upset about the size of the box. He let out an irritated sigh and gasped when he actually opened it.

Ok, well, this was _not_ what he was expecting to see.

In a way it _did_ feel like a study in him, but it wasn’t a scientific one. Not entirely. For someone who scoffed at almost every mention of sentiment, Sherlock had a lot of John’s personal items.

Like his tags, for example, and he didn’t even know they were missing. He had left them with the rest of his army things so Sherlock had to _confiscate_ them when John wasn’t looking. And he wasn’t exactly surprised that his mad flatmate would rummage through his things when he was away. The sense of boundaries was lost on Sherlock.

There was also a picture of John, taken God knows when, in which he smiles and his eyes look gentle, happy.

He sat at the bed and clutched the box to his chest, forcing himself to breathe before looking at the rest of it. He didn’t want to think about what it meant. He couldn’t. Not now.

But he also couldn’t _not_.

There was a handwritten note that he left pinned to the fridge, stating simply “Milk, you prat!”. John remembered how it made Sherlock smile and then he bought about ten litres of the stuff, just to spite him. He put the note beside the photo on the bed and tried to ignore that funny feeling in his chest.

A half-burned piece of his second favourite jumper came as a surprise. He had to throw it away after that arson case that turned out to be the series of ceremonial offerings. John was lucky to get away with only a burned jumper and Sherlock hated it anyway.

But maybe not as much as John had thought.

He found a blood sample and rolled his eyes because of _course_ Sherlock would want to have that. The fact that John didn’t remember him taking it was probably the most worrying thing in this scenario.

The domino piece, on the other hand, surprised him. That is, until he remembered that day when Sherlock had a particularly vicious... well, not fight exactly, but staring contest with his brother, and John brought peace to the flat by playing tiddlywinks with domino pieces and purposefully missing his aim more than once. It was rather immature but also bloody effective. It made Mycroft leave out of sheer frustration and Sherlock kept looking at him smugly for the entire day.

Then there was a bullet from his gun and that was no surprise at all. Neither was a tiny piece of Semtex, although saying that John wasn’t too keen on the idea of keeping _explosives_ in the flat would be an understatement. He smiled at the miniature rabbit statuette that was made from that material that was actually glowing in the dark.

It all just made him want to laugh and cry at the same time. The sample of his favourite brand of jam (raspberry, no doubt to analyze what’s so special about it), the list of every password he tried to use against the constant assaults on his laptop’s security (even after he got _really_ inventive with insults), the newspaper article about that one and only case that John solved before Sherlock, but only by sheer luck and coincidence and yet Sherlock seemed so proud, and—

And maybe John was imagining things because of his unexpected discovery but maybe there was also affection.

He could crawl in Sherlock’s bed and maybe cry over a missed chance but what would be the point? He really believed in what he’d said to Greg. There had been something special between them. Something unique. Now John had the tangible proof that Sherlock felt that way too and, if anything, it was a relief.

He walked out of Sherlock’s room with a genuine smile that hadn’t been on his lips in a very long time.


	6. Advocat

Expecting things to go back to normal after that sort of a revelation was probably naive. They did not. John couldn’t delete that knowledge and some days it made him smile.

And some days it didn’t. There were times when he wanted to disappear, when getting up seemed like the most pointless thing in the world and John couldn’t really blame it on that knowledge but neither did it help. He also often found himself wandering near the cemetery and trying not to go and talk to Sherlock, which was equally as pointless as getting up was. Sherlock was dead and gone and there was _nothing_ he could do to change that.

Once or twice, he couldn’t resist. And yet, when he was already there, he could only stare at the gravestone without uttering a word.

He learned how to play “Ode to Joy” on the violin. It wasn’t that difficult in the end and John didn’t know what the whole fuss was about.

Greg visited one day, when John was busy examining some samples he found in Sherlock’s bedroom. It looked more and more likely that, at some point, Sherlock had a cat there, somewhere. John didn’t know if he was more amused by the mental image of his flatmate coexisting with an actual animal or worried about the poor creature’s fate.

He wasn’t even a tiny bit surprised, though.

“John?” Greg asked with an uncertain edge to his voice, eyeing the microscope that John had found in Sherlock’s room (turns out, Mrs Hudson didn’t give it away after all).

“Hmm?”

“What are you doing? Although, no, you know what? I don’t want to know. _Why_ are you doing it?”

“What do you mean?” John asked and frowned at him.

“You’ve been... you’ve been behaving strangely. For some time now. You... you play the violin, you actually _notice_ things now and now you’re conducting experiments...” he said warily.

“Yeah, well,” John just shrugged. “It’s not as if Sherlock had exclusive rights or something. You here to tell me that?” he asked and cocked his head to the right.

“Not... exactly,” Lestrade admitted, still eyeing the microscope suspiciously. John felt a surge of something that could only be described as fond annoyance. “I was— Well, I just— Thank you, I guess.”

“Whatever for?” John asked, really surprised this time.

“You said something to Molly, didn’t you? I mean, she’s— We’re— Well...”

John nodded sharply and offered Greg a beer with half a smile, but he declined, leaving him alone with the sample of cat’s fur.

 

Christmas was approaching faster than he expected. He wasn’t so keen on spending it alone again, though Mrs Hudson’s nagging irritated him (in a strangely fond, exasperated way), Greg and Molly’s invitations annoyed him and that didn’t even include Harry’s texts and Mike’s prodding.

The problem solved itself when he managed to get himself a date. He ran into Annie in Tesco’s and couldn’t help but comment on that specific brand of mulled wine she was looking at that Sherlock had successfully proved could be a murder weapon. He expected to be ignored or murdered with a simple, pointed look but she just smiled at him.

John had almost forgotten how good it felt to just flirt with someone. He was genuinely surprised when Annie — all bright eyes and a beautiful smile — gave him her number and suggested they spent the Christmas Eve together. A quiet night in with decent company could be just what he needed.

She came to Baker Street with her own, homemade food, which was a small blessing, since all John thought to provide was some beer. It stood miserably beside the mulled wine she brought with the cheese salad (not the one she’d been looking at). They put some music on (Molly’s gift from last year just _happened_ to still be in the radio) and chatted lightly, and John found he was enjoying himself.

Annie was funny and rather smart and pretty, and he liked the way her eyes were shining in the dim light of his living room.

So he really couldn’t understand why he hadn’t kissed her yet. He tried, a couple of times, when their eyes locked or when she smiled at him in that beautiful way, and he did want to kiss her but couldn’t. Something was stopping him. He would notice little details about her, small, irrelevant things like a stain on her sleeve or a dog hair on her knee and he’d get too fixated on those things to actually do anything.

It was a small miracle that she hadn’t notice anything.

Although, on second thought, she probably did.

He decided to distract her with dinner (that she’d provided) and when he noticed the chocolate box, he shrugged and left in on the coffee table before going to the kitchen to make some tea.

“What is this thing?!” he heard Annie’s irritated voice and ignored the kettle for a while.

“Hmm?” When he reappeared in the living room, she was practically choking on the piece of chocolate she’d eaten. John frowned. “You don’t like chocolate?” he asked.

“No, I do. But this,” she coughed and lifted the barely bitten piece, “this is not chocolate!”

John eyed her, the chocolate in her hand and then the box with confusion. He’d never noticed anything strange about it but, then, he wasn’t an expert, was he?

“Let me see,” he said, ignoring the click of the kettle. He put the chocolate in his mouth and while the advocat filling was unexpected, it tasted normal to him. He just shrugged and put the box back on the shelf. If Annie didn’t want his chocolate, she wasn’t getting any.

He went back to the kitchen and made tea to go with the salad. Then he hurried to the living room, suddenly uncomfortable with all the cleanliness. He smiled at Annie as he offered her the mug. Their fingers brushed and he nearly jumped away. It wasn’t right. The touch. It wasn’t... it wasn’t right.

The phone chimed in his pocket and he sighed when he saw the same nonsensical message he must have been sending to himself. It still wasn’t making any sense.

John sat beside Annie on the sofa and looked at her worriedly. She didn’t _seem_ to notice something was off, and it was a small mercy. But then she turned to look at him in a strange way that reminded him of swimming pools, red dots and bomb vests.

There was no air left in the room for John in that moment and he had to get out of there because the image was already shifting and he knew that shape on the pavement, except he didn’t because it was all wrong and what was he doing, lying there with a bullet between his empty eyes...?

“John?” he heard Annie saying and he realized he was halfway to the kitchen already. He looked at her blankly. “Are you alright?”

He was most definitely _not_ , but he wasn’t going to tell her that. He just nodded sharply and made another tea which he traded for the bear in the end.

It didn’t help.

Once John experienced it again, he couldn’t shake off that feeling of dread, of utter terror at seeing his best friend die before his eyes. And there was the panic again, that hopeless feeling of being useless because why would he even be there if he _couldn’t do anything_?

He would have screamed or cried if Annie wasn’t with him and he began to resent her for it.

The midnight was approaching very fast and he tried to be good company but he just kept thinking how utterly lost he was and how he didn’t even know what to do anymore and what if nothing ever changed? What if he was doomed to feel like this for the rest of his life? What if he ended up alone, just like he’d always feared he would?

What if they all _left_?

He gritted his teeth and tried really hard not to succumb to the panic attack. He had to excuse himself though, and he barricaded himself in the bathroom, hitting the wall out of frustration.

What was he doing? He wasn’t even able to _think_.

When John returned to the living room, Annie was pouring the heated wine into the mugs. She smiled at him and he made himself smile in response, though _how_ did he make that plausible, he couldn’t fathom. (And was that mistletoe?)

Annie drank some wine and leaned in for the mandatory kiss. He met her lips somewhere in between and made himself go through the motions, trying to squash that panicky feeling.

She tasted of mulled wine and some mint and it was all just really, really wrong. He broke the kiss and drank the whole mug of wine in one go. Annie looked at him cautiously.

“What?” he snapped.

“You are a strange man, Doctor Watson,” she said. “And I’m not entirely sure I should be here with you right now,” she added and when she didn’t get an answer, she just sighed and left, kissing him goodbye on the cheek.

He couldn’t honestly say he regretted it.

The knot in his stomach loosened a bit when the bells chimed twelve times. He still felt lonely though, and lost, and rather hurt for no apparent reason. He drank the rest of the wine and sighed.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” he muttered and went to sleep in Sherlock’s bed. Again.


	7. Coffee

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to thank all of you for taking your time to read this story. It means a lot to me, every comment, every kudos, every minute of your time spent reading what my silly mind has to offer (and what the characters try to achieve all by themselves). Thank you!

It was a really unfair chase.

John was running after something (or some _one_ ) and he didn’t even know what that something was. All he knew was that he wanted it and that he just _had to_ catch it before it could slip out of his reach.

Easier said than done, though. Every time he got closer, every time he could feel that something nearly there, it would go away even further.

And the weather wasn’t helping. Honestly, John couldn’t quite fathom why did he choose that day to run about chasing shadows. The blazing sun was caressing his skin with too much enthusiasm and John was sweating heavily. He was also dehydrated; his throat hurt as if he ate sand, which was a valid possibility.

He couldn’t stop. Not now, when he was almost _there_ wherever the hell there _was_. John wasn’t sure if he _could_ stop running, even if he wanted to. It all felt like too much but not enough at the same time.

His feet slipped on the sand and he nearly fell but then he did not. Not yet. He needed to carry on and so he continued running, trying to overcome the heat and aching limbs, and why were these buildings so tall and yet none of them could offer him the relief of a shadow?

There was a gunshot and, this time, he fell. The pain was new and real again, but it wasn’t his shoulder that was shot through this time. It was his head, but his mind didn’t want to just _stop_ _buzzing_ even when the bullet tried to silence it.

He was waiting for the ground to meet him, to stop his fall, but it didn’t. He could see no ground beneath, and the building he just fell from seemed to never ever end...

He was watching himself fall and he didn’t understand that creepy sort of a déjà vu. And how was that even _possible_? You couldn’t be in two places at the same time...

He kept falling and falling and falling, and maybe it was better this way, maybe then he won’t have to see his own bloody skull—

He woke with a start and breathing heavily. For a moment, he didn’t know where he was and how he got there (and was he _still falling_?) but then he switched to his soldier mode and assessed his surroundings. Sherlock’s room. Sherlock’s bed. _Again_.

And he had a nightmare, John realized and fell hard onto the bed.

It was foolish to hope that they’d stop completely, he supposed. And yet, he hadn’t had one in _months_ , so he let himself believe that maybe, possibly, they were gone.

They weren’t though, as he’d just established and John nearly screamed because it was bloody unfair.

John looked at his mobile to check the hour and groaned. 3.18 a.m. And there was also another one of this stupid nonsensical texts his phone kept insisting on sending him. He sighed and stared at the ceiling, perfectly aware that he wouldn’t be getting any more sleep that night.

He lay quietly in bed for half an hour or so before he finally gave up and went to make himself a cuppa.

He certainly didn’t expect Mycroft Holmes to wait for him in _Sherlock’s_ armchair, the git, and staring dispassionately at John’s chocolate box.

“A rough night?” he asked without even glancing at John, which was bloody irritating.

“A rough life,” John responded with anger and resentment suddenly blossoming inside him. He briefly wondered if he should just remove the door, since it clearly became a purely decorative object. “Tea?” he asked through gritted teeth, determined not to acknowledge Mycroft’s tired eyes and his visible loss of weight. For him, he remained that fat bastard that had cost Sherlock his life.

“No, thank you, John,” Mycroft said, still not looking at him.

John just shrugged and went to put the kettle on anyway. If he had to deal with Mycroft, he might as well have a nice cup of tea first.

He pretended to debate between two brands of tea and thus had to reheat the water and then decided to have coffee instead; he took his time with sugar and milk. When he returned to the living room, Mycroft seemed unaffected, which only made John more irritated, so he decided to sit on the sofa instead of the chair.

Mycroft kept eyeing the chocolate box, so John went to fetch it and shoved it at his fat hands.

“Want some?” he asked innocently and put one chocolate in his own mouth to prove a point. Coffee-flavoured. Fitting.

He wasn’t exactly surprised when Mycroft refused to take the chocolate but it didn’t make the taunting any less satisfying. He put the box back on the shelf, very much on display.

He didn’t even know he had it in him.

“You have changed, Doctor Watson,” Mycroft stated, looking at his umbrella. John snickered.

“Back to the last name basis, are we, _Mr Holmes_?” he spit out.

Mycroft pursed his lips and, after a moment, let out an exasperated sigh.

“I admit I made a mistake,” he conceded, as if it could change anything, and John snorted. “But it’s not the reason for us not to unite in the name of a common cause.”

“And what would that be?” John asked. He was still agitated after that nightmare and now he had to deal with Mycroft, so he began pacing to avoid exploding. It gave him better focus too.

“Do you know what day it is?” Mycroft asked, earning himself a frustrated look.

“Monday?” John retorted, drinking up his tea.

Mycroft gave him a calculated look that bore traces of pity for his petty little brain. John hated the man.

“Today is Sherlock’s birthday,” he said and that made John start. Shit.

“Well, and what?” he asked, angry. “It’s not like it matters anymore. What, you want to throw him a party, now that he can’t attend and ruin it?” he snorted.

The infuriating man just smiled mildly and John itched for the violin to transform his frustration into sounds. He regretted leaving it in Sherlock’s bedroom because otherwise he could make use of it to scare Mycroft away.

But the elder (the _only_ , and _no_ , he wasn’t going to think about it) Holmes only sighed and lifted an eyebrow at John.

“I thought,” he started, “that maybe it was a good opportunity to commemorate him.”

“You mean, what, a memorial?”

“A _memoir_ ,” Mycroft said and looked pointedly at John. “It should be more... practical, wouldn’t you say?”

John stared at him for a moment without fully understanding what he meant. And then it hit him. Hard. He broke into a hysterical laughter.

“He wouldn’t have liked it,” he said when he managed to compose himself. Mycroft only hummed something incomprehensible. “Sherlock. He wouldn’t have liked it.”

“I think he rather would have,” Mycroft said. “But only if it’s written by his... favourite blogger.”

John gritted his teeth and tried to suppress the anger rising in him with more pacing.

“He could barely stand my blog...” he said simply and the man only smiled like he had a secret. It made John want to throw things at him.

“There isn’t enough material to write an entire book” he said, keeping his voice carefully level and studiously indifferent.

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” Mycroft said, still with that little triumphant smile, as if he knew he’d already won. “You have plenty of unfinished drafts on your computer. If you hurry up, we could have the book out before another anniversary comes and goes. See you very soon. _John_.”

And he left, leaving John behind just like that, so John threw a pillow at the door he vanished behind. Just for good measure.


	8. Nut

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's short. Sorry. The next one will be longer.  
> I don't quite know how this chapter works. And if it even does at all. I was in a really strange ~~trance~~ mood when I was writing it. I hope it works.
> 
> I suppose it's a bit late for that, but I always notify about the updates on [my tumblr](http://atisenia.tumblr.com).

As it turned out, writing that damn book was both the best and the worst decision John could have made in these circumstances. He finally had something to focus on, his sudden obsession with details making him go through the notes that still remained in Sherlock’s bedroom (and those appropriated by the police had _magically_ found their way back to Baker Street. John hated that man, he really did, but he _had_ given him a purpose again). He was rewriting the cases posted on his blog, this time making them sound less like his poorly narrated account of daily life and more as if they were characters in some detective stories.

No matter what Mycroft had to say about it, Sherlock wouldn’t have liked it. Oh, he would have not.

Writing gave him something to do, something to distract himself from the nightmares that caused his sudden insomnia (or, frankly, reluctance to go to sleep). And he didn’t even _need_ that much sleep these days. A short nap on the sofa once in a while would be more than sufficient. And he quite liked it that way. It gave him more time to write and while he was terrible at this at first, he was getting better and there finally came a day when he was rather proud of some things he’d written.

But once he started, he couldn’t stop. New ideas, cases he thought he’d forgotten and those he wasn’t sure were even _real_ (because he could remember them but couldn’t quite recall _living_ them) kept developing in his mind and fought for his attention until he found the right words for them. And even then, they haunted him in his dreams on these rare occasions he indulged himself with some sleep.

Mrs Hudson didn’t like this newfound obsession of his, and Lestrade didn’t either. They looked at him as they used to look at Sherlock when he was too far gone into a case (hell, it was the look _John_ used to give him). The gentle prodding sometimes got him out for a pint with Greg or tea and biscuits with Mrs Hudson but he preferred to be left alone with his book and accepted their less than subtle rescue plan with exasperated fondness (funny how this seemed to be his default mood around people he cared about. Not Mycroft though. Never Mycroft).

There were days when he couldn’t put down a single word on a page and all that frustration almost made him _shoot the bloody walls._

He didn’t though, because Mrs Hudson didn’t deserve it and so every time he hit the mental wall, he searched the flat for Mycroft’s cameras and smashed them, always in new, inventive ways. He suspected Mycroft kept leaving them there for this sole reason but John didn’t really care. 

When the anniversary of Sherlock’s death came that year then, people all over Britain could buy their own copy of a book titled _My life with Sherlock Holmes_ (which was a _terrible_ title for it but the editor insisted and John didn’t care enough to argue). It was a bloody miracle that they could print so many copies in such a short time (or rather Mycroft’s doing, really).

It left John feeling exhausted and old and very, very lost.

He saw people reading it on the Tube when he was going to St. Bart’s like the year before, this time with a tea rose, and it would be difficult _not_ to notice the increase in the votive offerings. He left the rose on the pavement and walked away as quickly as possible.

He left another rose at Sherlock’s grave (red because, fuck it all, he was well beyond the point of caring what people would _think_. They always thought what they bloody wanted anyway). He sat behind the gravestone again and remained stubbornly silent all day long, ignoring the occasional glares people were sending in his direction, because hadn’t he talked enough already? Nearly three hundred pages of wounded narrative had to suffice and if Sherlock didn’t like it... well.

He returned to the flat when it was nearly midnight, almost frozen and probably all _blue_ , judging by the looks Mrs Hudson was giving him. He should probably warm himself up, take a shower or something, but there was the violin waiting for him and he was going to play it.

He did, for two hours straight, ignoring the knocks on the walls and the pain in his calloused fingers (and his calloused heart). It was a cathartic experience so he let the music flow. He only stopped when there was nothing more to say, when he finally — finally! — felt the full weight of the accumulated tiredness and he nearly collapsed on the spot. He took one chocolate out of his box (nut, dull) to keep himself awake for just a minute longer so that he could actually get to the bed and it was his bloody chocolate, he could do as he pleased.

He was asleep even before he finally hit the bed and he didn’t dream about anything.

Anything _at all_.


	9. Truffle

The book backfired spectacularly on him. After months of focusing on it, of channelling his feelings and fears and wishes into neat narrative, he was abruptly left without an outlet for all the energy that was still accumulated in him.

Well, there was _one_.

 “You didn’t sleep well last night,” John said to Lestrade as soon as the man crossed the threshold with a concerned look on his face. The inspector just froze at his words. “In fact, you didn’t even make it home last night. Ah, I see,” John said and made himself smile. “The thing with Molly is going well then?”

Lestrade just stood there, opening and closing his mouth, with wide eyes and lost expression that John didn’t understand.

And when it hit him, he laughed.

“John?” Lestrade seemed to finally recover his voice, though it was uncertain and cautious. “Are   
you—?”

“Am I alright?” John asked and looked at his friend. “Oh my _God,_ do I _look_ alright to you?”

“You just—

“I just turned into him,” John said and laughed again and it broke something inside him.

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, watching him carefully going mad.

John didn’t though. Not entirely. (Although, no, that was a lie, he’d been far gone for a long time.)

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Tea?”

Lestrade hesitated before nodding and John went to put the kettle on.

 

He refused to give interviews, statements or otherwise comment on his book. It wasn’t the best advertising policy, he supposed, or it just added a mysterious touch to it. Who knew?

Avoiding the press in new, effective ways became his favourite pastime.

It was the only thing that made him smile these days.

 

“A difficult case, huh?” John asked from where he was bent over the microscope. Examining the structure of rotten skin tissue shouldn’t been this _fascinating_.

“Yeah,” Lestrade said, helping himself to a beer. He sighed contentedly after he took a sip. “A young girl, stabbed in the abdomen but without a trace of blood on her or on the floor. It’s a nightmare as it is and everyone is making it even worse with their clever ideas. She was so bloody _young_...” he said and shook his head. Then he drank some more beer.

John hummed noncommittally and looked at the inspector.

“She could have been stabbed after death,” he said. “Of course, I don’t have enough evidence to—“ He frowned at the expression on Lestrade’s face. “What?”

“You need to get out of here.”

“What? I—“

“No, seriously, John. Go somewhere. Anywhere, really. Just don’t stay here where everything’s—“ He sighed. “Go abroad, to the country, the coast, I don’t care. Just... just go, John. Just go.”

Well, he wasn’t expecting _that_.

 

He took Lestrade’s advice and went to the coast. He wasn’t in the mood for foreign countries and strange languages. He wasn’t really in the mood for the English coast either, but once he decided to go, he couldn’t back out.

It turned out to be a _terrible_ idea. He didn’t feel right in his tiny hotel room without the now constant domestic calm of Baker Street. He hadn’t realized how used he got to the permanent smell of chemicals and Sherlock’s shampoo that was _somehow_ still present in the flat. He only just discovered that the tea tasted all wrong in this dull, pointless place and he couldn’t quite look at the walls when at least one of them didn’t bore the gun holes and that ridiculous smiley face.

John spent practically an entire week on the beach, just sitting there and listening to the sea that didn’t quite manage to silence his thoughts. He couldn’t stay in his room for longer than absolutely necessary though, and socializing with people didn’t seem like a very good idea when he saw all those _details_ he had no need to know about.

Was it always like that for Sherlock, he wondered. Seeing more than he should, being able to point out all the little things, all the dirty secrets, not really understanding why he shouldn’t reveal them since they were so _obvious_ , surely. Getting frustrated when no one understood. Finally getting used to receiving punishment and resentment in exchange for the truth and maybe even to sometimes hate the very thing that made him so unique.

So John finally declared the trip a fiasco and went home a week earlier than planned. He couldn’t stay there, he was already losing his mind as it was and adding the extra factor wouldn’t help at all.

As soon as he stepped back into his flat, the smile spread over his face and he sighed with relief. He didn’t even bother with going to the bed this time. He just collapsed on the sofa and fell asleep after seven days of casual naps.

And he dreamed.

Sherlock was agitated this time and, thank God, they were at Baker Street and John didn’t see any high buildings in the proximity. His dead flatmate was pacing back and forth, seemingly oblivious to his presence, and John began to feel uncomfortable, as if he shouldn’t be there.

Sherlock was muttering to himself, his words incomprehensible, his attention focused solely on his phone. He was typing furiously, with more ferocity than ever before. He continued to ignore John, who sat on the sofa with a sigh, resigned to just observe his friend so seemingly alive. It should have been enough but John knew it was just an illusion.

He was startled out of his thoughts by his phone, chiming gently in his pocket. He looked up at Sherlock who was now staring at him with undivided attention.

John slowly reached for his phone, not breaking the eye contact until he absolutely had to if he wanted to read the message. It was from Sherlock, that much was clear, and John was about to open it when he woke up, only to find himself glaring at another one of those useless, self sent texts. It took much of his willpower not to smash the damn thing to pieces.

And then he curled on the sofa and sobbed into the pillow that still smelled like Sherlock’s shampoo.

 

He started avoiding mirrors. The eyes that looked back at him were not his own.

 

The day before Halloween he decided he’d had enough and invited himself on a crime scene. It was an obviously thematic murder, committed seemingly in the spirit of the holiday, that involved petty costumes and painfully clichéd puns. He wasn’t exactly allowed to be there but no one said anything to make him leave. They all probably assumed he’d gone mad and, frankly, they weren’t that far from the truth. Even Donovan looked at him with something akin to sympathy and John would think she’d be the first to kick him out.

He should hate her, he really should. It was so easy with Mycroft and John didn’t fully understand that, but he found he couldn’t resent Donovan as much as he wished to. He would probably feel better if he could blame Sherlock’s death on her, use her to channel all his anger.

But, in the end, it wasn’t her fault that Sherlock decided to jump from that bloody building, and John knew she didn’t like him but he could see (and wasn’t that just _hateful_?) that she didn’t want him to die.

It didn’t make John like her, though.

He solved the case in one day, earning himself some concerned and wary glances he didn’t really care about. When he moved to leave the station after delivering the final evidence, he heard someone calling his name. Before he could locate the voice’s source, Donovan’s hand landed on his shoulder and he looked at her with a frown.

“I will take you home,” she said and led the way out of the building.

“There’s really no need...” he protested because he wasn’t in the mood for her company and he certainly didn’t need to hear her reasons.

“No, please,” she said, turning to look at him, actually sounding desperate. “Just this once.”

John gritted his teeth and then sighed.

“Fine,” he said, giving up. If it was going to save him another round of nagging in the future, he supposed he could endure it.

They drove in silence, which John thought was suspicious. Sure enough, Donovan invited herself into his flat.

“Tea?” he asked, not really meaning it, but going to put the kettle on anyway.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” she said and beat him to the kitchen.

John looked after her and shrugged. He could as well sit on the sofa and wait for her next move, which was exactly what he did. Maybe she’d realize she wasn’t exactly welcome there and leave him alone. Sadly, it didn’t happen.

“I read your book,” she said, putting the mug in front of him.

Then she hesitated and finally settled on the chair by the desk.

“I didn’t think you’d care,” John said looking at her intently until she averted her eyes and shifted uncomfortably in her sit.

“I’m not like that, you know,” she said quietly. “I didn’t report him because I got tired of his bullshit and I admit I sometimes wanted to. His clever comments on my _personal_ life made me work twice as hard for everything I earned but I never complained. No, let me finish,” she said when John opened his mouth to protest. “I didn’t _do_ anything because, guess what, he was effective. I didn’t like his methods but if it meant that fewer people were hurt, well.” She shrugged. “Lestrade trusted him and he’s a pretty decent guy but I always thought Fr— Holmes was just toying with him like he was with each and every crime scene, victim, witness—“

“It wasn’t like that,” John interrupted her, looking at her with a warning.

“I know,” Donovan’s admission surprised him. “I told you I read your book. And did a lot of... thinking. I didn’t know it then though. And it made perfect sense. The evidence only he could find and trace, the screaming girl... I’d been putting my job on the line with everyone else’s, you know, and we had to fight really hard for it.”

“Yes, I know,” John said, irritated. He’d heard that story already. “I also know you were only able to keep it _after_ Sherlock had been proved innocent.”

“Ironic, that,” she said with a small smile that quickly faded. “I didn’t want him to die, ok? I didn’t. I—“ She sighed. “We gave him a chance to explain himself, he was the one who refused to take it.”

“And decided to make a run for it,” John said. “It didn’t look good, did it?” he murmured.

“No,” she said, looking at him and drinking her tea, lost in thought. “No, it really didn’t. Then he jumped and it was like a bloody confirmation, except I was wrong. About him. I was—“ She sighed again and stared at her mug. “I’d never wanted... you know? And then I read your book and I think I might be wrong about more things than just that and... I’m sorry... Doctor Watson,” she said, looking him in the eye, “I really am.”

John just nodded, thinking he should probably say something like “I’m sure Moriarty would find another way”. Because he would. The words, though, were not getting out of his mouth.

Donovan drank her tea and left the mug on the desk.

“I hated him,” she said quietly. “Because of what he’d always been saying, yes, but also... also because he had this amazing gift but instead of using it to help people, he was just toying with it, having fun running behind the suspects unarmed or tampering with evidence. It was _hell_ for the paperwork.” She smiled without really meaning it. “I didn’t understand that,” she said. “You and him. I was convinced he was somehow manipulating you or something. But when you describe it, it’s... something I can’t fully understand. That thing you had. I see it now... which is probably too late. I should go.”

Well, he didn’t stop her on her way out.

John knew she was telling the truth, he saw the signs. Well, at least she believed in what she was saying and that had to be good enough for him.

It still left him feeling empty.

When John switched on the telly, he was reminded of that nonsense of a Halloween. He smirked when he saw the chocolate box on the shelf and picked one of the two remaining chocolates. He left it on the kitchen table and nodded sharply.

“Trick or treat, Sherlock?”

He smiled and shook his head. It would be a perfect day for anyone to come back from the dead, he supposed, so John left the chocolate there for all the evening, with that hope foolish men like him had. In the end, he was the one who ate it. Truffle, he thought, was a lousy consolation prize. 


	10. Jelly

Harry rarely ever visited him, bless her, too preoccupied with her new girlfriend and the next drink. So John was rather unpleasantly surprised when she came by that day. He just wanted to be left alone. Was it really too much to ask?

Apparently, it was.

“What?” he snarled when he saw her. She could stop looking at him right now or leave, he thought and turned his back at her on the sofa.

“Look at that,” Harry said, amused. “Little Johnny _sulking_.”

“I’m not sulking!” said John and sank further down on the sofa. “And I’m not little. What do you want?”

“Can’t an older sister visit her baby brother?”

“Harry,” he said, annoyed, finally turning in her direction. “Oh. Oh, you got dumped.”

Harry looked as if she’d been struck by a lightning.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Thanks for pointing it out like that, but—“

“No, I don’t have anything to drink, no, I will not lend you money so that you could buy something yourself and no, I will not let you stay _in my flat_ and throw parties just to get drunk until you finally die of alcohol poisoning, which probably awaits you anyway.” Harry opened her mouth to say something, but John didn’t let her. “If that’s all, kindly piss off and _leave_.”

She pursed her lips and only when she stormed out of his flat, John realized what had happened. He started laughing like a lunatic at a sheer absurdity of it all. Should he feel guilty that he didn’t really feel guilty?

Perhaps. Probably. He didn’t though. Not at all.

 

The old John, as he referred to himself from before Sherlock’s death, wouldn’t like what he’d become.

He no longer knew how to live in society without insulting people on a daily basis. They were often asking for it, irritating him with their very existence. He tried to control it but sometimes the need was stronger than his resolve. That’s why he preferred to be left alone and even Lestrade got ignored these days whenever he wanted to take John out for a pint. It was a cause of constant looks of concern exchanged between the inspector and Mrs Hudson whenever they thought he wasn’t looking (and he always was). He tolerated the old lady’s gentle prodding, mainly tuning it out, not really paying any attention.

The new John didn’t particularly care. People were idiots anyway.

 

He kept dreaming about Sherlock. His dreams were weird in their simplicity and he didn’t know if he preferred them to the nightmares or not. Apart from that first time so long ago, Sherlock never talked. He just kept typing on that bloody phone of his with increasing frustration. John suspected he wanted to tell him something but wouldn’t it be easier to just articulate his thoughts in a normal way?

Then again, Sherlock had never acted like an ordinary human being.

The nightmares haunted him after he woke up. The dreams always left him felling empty.

 

He let Mrs Hudson persuade him to do some spring cleaning in the flat, though he really didn’t see the point of it. Fortunately, it was nothing like that feng-shui nonsense he had helped her with two years before. Just organizing some papers, dusting and throwing away what he didn’t need.

When he was organizing his books in a thematic order, he found the little note he’d found with the chocolate box. He had forgotten about it, practically deleted it at once but now he couldn’t avert his eyes from the words: _I’ll be back when it’s finished._

It wasn’t that John actually believed in things like magic, miracles, the lot. But he’d always thought that the apparition of the box in the flat was somewhat mysterious and definitely suspicious. And then there was Molly who said they were special and, well, maybe—

He nearly tripped over his own legs before he got hold of the box and he let out an annoyed sigh. It would be a beautiful irony to be so close to the answer and die of self-inflicted blow to the head. The last chocolate (jelly; he hated jellies more than he disliked chocolate) melted on his tongue. He closed his eyes and waited.

Nothing happened.

John sighed. Well, it was worth a try, he supposed. But why did he even have such an irrational hope in the first place, he couldn’t fathom.

He quietly went over the rest of the stuff in the flat and refused to go to sleep just out of spite. Unfortunately, even he had to succumb to his exhaustion at some point.

He went to bed with a defeated air around him and dreamed about empty armchairs and unspoken words.

 

He woke up to the smell of chemicals and groaned. How many times yet? When will it all just... stop?

It took him a painfully long while to determine that he was in his own room for a change. It took even more to realize he wasn’t alone in the flat. The sound of the dishes in the kitchen was pretty distinctive and he should probably get up and thank Mrs Hudson for whatever she was doing. Which was probably tea. (The fact he didn’t know for sure came as a mild surprise.)

His bed creaked and the noises from the kitchen stopped. Then they resumed, along with the chime of his phone.

“I’m not dead, you idiot. — SH,” it read and John frowned. When did his phone begin to send him—

Next thing he knew, John was running down the stairs. It was probably some sick joke...

But then he was in the kitchen and his world stopped making any sense just to gain it again.

Across the table stood a figure that John knew all too well. Dark curls, sharp grey-green-blue eyes, and an uncertain smile on his lips.

Well, that one vanished fairly quickly.

“Chocolate!” Sherlock (or someone who looked and sounded like him) snapped. “You don’t even _like_ chocolate! Oh, I knew I should have obligated her to stick to the beer. Or tea. _That_ would work.”

“Sh— Sherlock?” John asked cautiously, wide-eyed and unable to think (small blessings). “Am I dreaming again?”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, you’ve been pinching your arm for about a minute now and you’re still here, now aren’t you?”

John looked down at his arm and frowned. He didn’t even notice he was doing that but Sherlock was right, as always. It was bound to leave bruises.

But he _was_ still there.

“Three years, John!” Sherlock exclaimed and began pacing. “How could it take you _three years_ to eat nine pieces of chocolate?

“Well, I kind of wonder why it didn’t take me longer,” John said, crossing his arms, trying to contain the flood of mixed feelings inside. “Like forever,” he added.

He had questions. Many, in fact. Something weird happened and he didn’t understand it. Also, he probably, maybe, possibly wanted to yell at Sherlock, a bit. For good measure. But there would be time for questions later and John was past the point of putting away the things he wanted to do.

He probably also needed a tangible proof.

He circled the table and pulled Sherlock into a hug, which he reciprocated faster than John would have thought. Neither of them let go until they heard a surprised gasp and the sound of china breaking.

Well, they owed Mrs Hudson a new teapot then, John thought and began to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... There's only the epilogue left. I will write some more about the story after I post it.  
> And yes, I do think that John Watson is amazing as he is. I just wanted to play with some ideas and I can only hope you enjoyed the story so far, if only a little bit.


	11. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this is it.  
> I want to thank you for sticking with me until the end. Thank you for taking your time to read, leave kudos or comment. It really means a lot to me.

“Are you really telling me that you avoided death by literally turning into chocolate?” John asked when they were sitting on the sofa, shoulders pressed.

Sherlock sighed.

“Yes!” he said, irritated, as if he already explained it hundreds of times. Which he didn’t. “But you’re missing the point! Each chocolate was meant to contain a part of me, my personality, talents, habits, and finally a potential of a physical form. Eating it made you into a host of a sort, and then, when you ate the last one and fell asleep, I was able to recreate myself, so to speak, from all the elements you so dutifully though belatedly provided.“

“So, basically, it’s all magic,” John said, smiling wickedly at Sherlock’s scowl. “Well, I think I officially earned the right to call you sweetie.”

Sherlock spared him a superior glance.

“That was a terrible pun,” he said and his forced seriousness made John laugh.

 

“Oh, my poor boy! My poor boy!” Mrs Hudson cried when she replaced John in Sherlock’s arms. And then she hit him in the arm. “How could you do that to the old lady with such poor nerves? And to John!”

“I didn’t really have a choice, Mrs Hudson,” Sherlock said and gave John a look that actually promised answers for once. “But I’m here to stay now, if you let me.”

“Oh, you silly boy!” Mrs Hudson laughed through tears. “But I’ll put it on your rent, young man! I will!”

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” John asked and it got him a look. “No, Sherlock, seriously! I get why you had to do it, I really get that. And I’m trying not to be angry with you. But you could’ve just told me! Or Molly could, for that matter.”

“It wouldn’t have worked,” Sherlock murmured. “You had to eat the chocolates of your own volition. Otherwise the spell would backfire and I would remain scattered to bits in the air.”

John frowned.

“It was a huge risk then,” he said and Sherlock just shrugged. “Ok, so I get why you couldn’t tell me but, I don’t know, you were basically living inside of me, or... whatever. Why didn’t you try to communicate?”

“Oh, I tried,” Sherlock said, suddenly frustrated, and looked at him pointedly.

“You mean...” John started and looked blankly at his phone.

And then he laughed.

 

“Should we tell Greg Molly’s a witch?” John asked, still not quite sure how he felt about it.

“Why would we do that?”

“Well... they’re together now. Don’t you think... No, of course you don’t,” John sighed, but couldn’t stop the smile. “I wouldn’t have believed that, you know? If I hadn’t lived... all of this. I wouldn’t have.”

“We’ve all underestimated her quite spectacularly,” Sherlock said and John stared at him after that admission. He scowled. “But why did she think turning me into _chocolate_ was a good idea, is beyond me.”

He appeared to be annoyed but John knew better. Molly Hooper got promoted from annoying-but-sometimes-useful to interesting and she didn’t know what she got herself into. Yet.

 

“I found the box, Sherlock,” John finally said. It seemed like a good moment to bring it up. As good as any, in fact.

“Yes,” Sherlock said, averting his gaze.

But John wasn’t going to leave it at that.

“Does it mean what I think it means?” he asked quietly.

He only got silence as an answer.

“Sherlock?”

“Yes,” his friend finally admitted.

“Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just me talking about the fic.;)  
> When I first thought about a story involving chocolate, I instantly had this scene in my head when Sherlock's irritated about being turned into chocolate instead of what John would actually like. Initially, I just wanted to play with the three years time and make John a host for Sherlock but not let it affect him. Just... help "recreate" Sherlock. But then I was talking about the story to a friend of mine (about writing in general, really) and she said something about the chocolates turning the person who eats them into that other person who's in the chocolates. So that's how it began, I guess.  
> I wanted the changes to be subtle, gradual and not sudden. I hope it worked for you.  
> I never intended for John to be Sherlock's copy, though. I know it could have seemed like it, but I love John the way he is and I did consider a different ending when Sherlock stays in John forever (I'm a very indecisive person by the way, always thinking about other possibilities even if the one I chose feels right) but I would have John keep his own traits. As it is, he doesn't have the "essence" of Sherlock inside him anymore, but I don't think he'll lose all the useful things he learned just like that.  
> Well, I hope you enjoyed the story and thank you again for reading it.:)


End file.
